THE FUTURE OF THE WTO
THE FUTURE OF THE WTO
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世贸组织的未来
DOI：
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发表时间：
1999
期刊：
影响因子：
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通讯作者：
Daniel T. Griswold
中科院分区：
文献类型：
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作者：
Daniel T. Griswold
世界贸易组织（WTO）曾经是一个隐藏在瑞士日内瓦的默默无闻的国际机构，如今在美国几乎已经家喻户晓。1999年秋天，世贸组织11月30日至12月3日部长级会议开始时，数万名抗议者占领了西雅图的街道，世贸组织的知名度急剧上升。示威者似乎指责世贸组织破坏了世界上所有美好的东西--从民主和生活水平到空气质量和海龟。抗议活动之后，世贸组织100多个成员国的谈判在本周晚些时候破裂，这些谈判本应启动新一轮多边贸易谈判。这种双重失败--在谈判室外说服人心，在谈判室内达成共识--是世贸组织和自由贸易不可否认的挫折。西雅图的事件使世贸组织的反对者们更加愤怒，削弱了它在国会中的支持基础，并重新引发了人们对贸易自由化本身作为美国政策目标的可取性的质疑。人们对世贸组织的未来产生了前所未有的怀疑。世贸组织和之前的关税及贸易总协定在二战后时期的国际贸易扩张中发挥了重要作用，而这反过来又有助于将繁荣传播到更广泛的人类圈。1947年，当23个主要工业化国家的代表聚集在一起签署最初的关税及贸易总协定（GATT）条约时，世界经济仍然处于瘫痪状态
Once an obscure international body tucked away in Geneva, Switzerland, the World Trade Organization (WTO) has become almost a household word in the United States today. Its name recognition rose dramatically in fall 1999 when tens of thousands of protestors took over the streets of Seattle at the beginning of the WTO’s November 30–December 3 ministerial meeting. The demonstrators seemed to blame the WTO for undermining all that is good in the world—from democracy and living standards to air quality and sea turtles. The protests were followed later in the week by the collapse of talks among the WTO’s more than 100 members, talks that were supposed to launch a new round of multilateral trade negotiations. This double failure—to persuade hearts and minds outside the negotiating rooms and to achieve consensus within—was an undeniable setback for the WTO and free trade. Events in Seattle invigorated opponents of the WTO, weakened its base of support in Congress, and revived questions about the desirability of trade liberalization itself as a goal of U.S. policy. More so than anytime since its founding, doubts are being raised about the future of the WTO. Those doubts need to be met head-on. Both the WTO and, before it, the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade have played an important role in expanding international trade during the post-World War II era, which in turn has helped to spread prosperity to a widening circle of humanity. When representatives of 23 mostly industrialized nations met in 1947 to sign the original General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) treaty, the world economy was still on its knees